I have one machine successfully dual booted, but have always had a bit of bother with achieving the same with my Asus netbook. This is down to the limited hard disk space of 20 Gig. I would like to be able to use Linux on this machine and wonder about the viability of using Linux from a bootable USB stick. I have actually tried it briefly using Ubuntu from a stick. I was amazed at the whole concept of having a functioning OS on a stick that you could even make changes to. However I just wonder if there are any major or notable drawbacks to using it like this regularly? I'm assuming that I will be able install all my Linus apps like Media and copying software on to the stick. I bought a 16 Gig stick today with the intention of doing this. I guess it will be slower but how much so? When I tested it previously it seemed to work fine connecting to the internet and running Office.

Although I would be happy using Ububtu I do like Mint. But Mint does not seem to offer the function to make a USB OS stick. Is there some way I can do this?

sudo apt-get install unetbootin

With unetbootin you can make bootable sticks from nearly any distribution.

Done it a lot of times, really easy and always working.

Enjoy!